


The Space Between Words and Looks

by orangefriday



Series: Levi & Nico Tumblr Fics [10]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 17:58:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangefriday/pseuds/orangefriday
Summary: Set after 15x24: Nico and Levi finally talk it out and there's also a lot of crying.





	The Space Between Words and Looks

“Shepherd says I have a concussion.”

Nico’s standing at the doorway, watching Levi, who’s lying on a hospital bed and in a gown. It’s weird to see him in those. It’s not something Nico had ever thought he’d ever see Levi in. But he’s there, bruises on his arms and looking more tired than he’s ever looked, hooked up to fluids and one bare foot sticking out of the hospital’s sad excuse for blankets.

It’s hard to swallow and Nico’s eyes, they start to burn. He wants to ask Levi a million things but he’s afraid of what will happen once he opens his mouth.

He thinks of all the things that have happened this week. How everything’s fucked up and how it’s all because of him. Killing Josh. The other doctors babysitting him and questioning him. And Levi… The world seems to be spiralling downward uncontrollably as Nico stands unmoving.

He doesn’t know what he can do without something snapping or breaking the way he doesn’t want it to. So Nico does the safe thing, he hopes, and looks away from Levi’s searching gaze and hones in on the one thing in the room that’s familiar. He walks up to the foot of the bed and grabs his chart, flips through it and tries to focus on what’s been diagnosed, what’s been recommended as treatment, Levi’s labs and his scans, but even that — something Nico’s done dozens of times — seems futile.

Apparently, he can’t read or even think right now.

So he puts the chart down again, having processed zero information, and just stands there, staring at Levi’s foot.

“I’m not allowed to fall asleep,” Levi starts again but stops. There’s a little inflection of hope in Levi’s tone and Nico expects Levi to go on to tell the story of how Dr. Hunt and him saved a VIP blood donor from a pile up on the highway but he doesn’t. Levi just sucks in a shaky breath and stops.

He doesn’t do well with silence, Nico’s realized after months of being with Levi. He’d soon break into a diatribe of unconscious babble than stay silent for longer than five minutes.

It’s one of the many things he liked about Levi when they first got together, as Nico isn’t always the best conversationalist so having someone there, constantly and effortlessly filling up every moment made every minute become something interesting and fascinating. It’s a blessing sometimes and other times, is a tiresome flaw that in the best of moods, amuses Nico.

But Levi’s oddly quiet now. Nico looks up for a moment, just to make sure Levi hadn’t actually fallen asleep and was still alive. But Levi’s awake, wide eyed and staring something sad right back at Nico. He adverts his gaze again quickly back to Levi’s apparently very interesting foot.

Nico sighs but it does nothing to release the growing ball of tension in his chest.

He should say something — anything. Nico tries to think of a good conversation starter:  _The weather sucks, huh?_  Yeah, no, shit, Kim. It’s foggy and it’s why your boyfriend is broken in a bed. Are they even still boyfriends?  _How’s your head?_  Well, probably not great seeing as he’s got a concussion and all.  _So Altman had a baby._  Not exactly something Nico particularly cares about or wants to talk about beyond that.

He settles for: “Your foot cold?”

It’s not even a real sentence. Not even one that makes grammatical sense.  _Your foot cold?_  Like he’s a caveman asking for fire to warm up his useless stone cold heart.

Nico fucking sucks at this.

“What?” Levi says and Nico finds himself echoing the same sentiment in his own head.

“Nothing,” Nico sighs and thinks he should just leave. Maybe come back when he’s not a complete idiot and incompetent colleague, boyfriend, doctor — whatever he is now to Levi after everything that’s happened. After he’s pushed away the one and only person that he cares about and who cares about him just as much. Who’s told him he loves him and is his first love. Who is trying his hardest, despite all of his faults, just to be Nico’s supportive person.

The person that he loves so much himself that when Link told him to let Dr. Webber close up because Levi had been in the middle of a thirty car pile up with Hunt, Nico’s heart had practically stopped right there and would’ve broken into a million pieces before him if Link hadn’t followed up quickly with the words, “But he’s okay.”

Bokhee had had to practically body slam him against the door to be able to yank off his bloody gown and gloves before he left the OR.

And now he’s here, awkwardly standing at the foot of a hospital bed and not being able to look into the eyes of the person he wants to kiss  _so badly_ and who he hasn’t kissed since yelling at them to shut up for once in their life _._ Nico’s just glad Levi’s  _fine_  and that the last words he said to Levi won’t be something angry and red like an inflamed and infected body part.

They can heal from here. He knows they can. If only Nico could say something better than  _Your foot cold?_

Nico gingerly pulls the blanket to cover up Levi’s foot and rests a hand on top, blinking back tears that had shown up in his eyes uninvited the moment he saw Levi in the room all bruised and tired and thankfully,  _not dead._

“I’m sorry.”

Nico looks up. It’s Levi who says the words Nico had been struggling to find. Levi’s biting his bottom lip and shrugging and seems to want to say something more but stops himself again.

Nico suddenly hates that Levi’s doing this now.

“For what?” Nico manages and grips Levi’s foot a little harder in his hand when he sees Levi fighting back his own tears.

“I don’t know. For being a shitty boyfriend? For not actually giving you those flowers and for pushing you to talk when you didn’t want to. I’m sorry, Nico. I’m sorry I couldn’t understand and I miss you and god, I miss you  _so_ much. I—I —”

Levi’s full on crying now, tears spilling and expression contorted against a reddening face. And Nico finds himself jumping over the bed railing, just barely able to avoid crushing Levi’s knee caps and crawling up right beside the other man who is suddenly uncontrollably crying and sobbing and blabbering. Nico thinks it’s probably the shock from the trauma of the pile up finally wearing off and maybe a little bit of the frustration from having to deal with Nico who’s been a right fucking ass if he was being honest. 

And he’s been such an ass to himself too for so long. Unwilling to let himself forget, to process, to  _forgive_. 

Nico should forgive himself, the little voice inside  _screams_  this at him. 

He catches Levi’s hand and holds it desperately and tightly against his chest and forcibly buries his own face into Levi’s neck. Levi struggles a bit, but ultimately gives in, his heaving sobs slowing as tears wet the side of Nico’s head.

And now Nico’s crying now too, freely, like Levi’s tears are contagious. He cries in relief as he hears every living breath Levi gives, cries in sadness at all the harsh and hurtful things he said, and cries in agony in memory of a dead Josh. The sound of Josh’s flatlined heart that he’s been hearing in his head for days now goes quiet as he listens to Levi.

Nico feels clearer now, like something that had been gripping his whole being finally released its suffocating hold. And he’s so  _tired,_ he realizes as he holds Levi closer to him.The endless days of throwing himself into work just to ignore all his feelings and drown out the fact that someone was  _dead_  because of him finally catches up and slams the brakes on his sad train with force.

Nico ends up saying a lot of things, surprisingly, things he won’t exactly remember later and Nico’s almost afraid his voice will give from it all. But they’re filled with apologies and explanations and sweet promises to Levi that he adamantly plans to keep.

And Levi listens, as best as Levi can. They reach their rhythm again, a better one than before. Levi kisses Nico for the first time in days and it’s good and it’s missed.

Fuck, he loves Levi so much and he tells him exactly that.

And after all the not-talking, all the crying, all the actual talking and finally getting the go ahead to sleep and rest from a flustered Shepherd who walks into the room to find two grown men clutching one another with swollen cried-out eyes, the world finally feels a little bit okay again.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little different from the original tumblr post. Not too much though and if you blink, you'll miss it. As always, thanks for reading!
> 
> send me fic prompts at [@glassesandkim](http://glassesandkim.tumblr.com)!


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